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Yale Cousino has been killing it since I was in elementary school. Essentially the new hometown Burton king, Yale throws down handplants all over the Burton factory in Burlington VT.
Photos by Jake Grossman-Crist
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These lines are from the now infamous fax sent by surfboard foam producer, Grubby Clark, of Clark Foam, Inc., Laguna Nigel, California, which stated that the sky was falling (or so we thought).
Clark Foam didn't exactly have a monopoly on polyurethane (PU) blank production. He merely produced some 1,000 per day, 85 percent of the surfboard foam used by board manufacturers. Not 85 percent in California, not the US. . . 85 percent in the world.
Speculations clouded the air like the toxic gasses that were allegedly spilling from the Clark Foam factory. Accusations flew about his strong-arm tactics. Some called Clark an environmental nightmare, others claimed he was a target of California's code enforcement. Some surfers examined the inherent toxicity of their very crafts, but most were more concerned with where their next board was coming from. Board builders in the Northeast were hit as hard as anywhere.
Boiler plate slopes, rock hard parks and -40 temperatures give East Coast riders an instant caché and respect unknown by our fair-condition counterparts, as well as an indispensable knack to ride anything, anytime. But beyond all the ice and guts, the East Coast also has another weapon in its artillery to produce the world's best: It's home to the oldest and most established snowboard academies in the country.
Chas Guldemond and Scotty Lago shine as two of the East's brightest examples.
Lago and Guldemond have a lot in common. They both represent premiere East Coast up-and-coming talent, both cut their teeth at Waterville Valley, and both have ignited the global snow media recently. What many of the national outlets have failed to discuss, however, are the strikingly different means these two riders have chosen to blaze their trails to success. These two prodigies of the same age and same hill had two fundamentally different climbs to the top. One graduated from a world-renowned snowboard academy, while the other took a strictly independent path.
In the Northeast, we take adversity, dip it in a sweet glaze, and eat it like a Tim Horton's doughnut. We know how to make the best of a sh*tty situation. Hurricane Season wasn't so much cancelled this year. It was fashionably late, leaving us to stare at flat waters through our coveted September.
It wasn't until October that the season came alive, when mid-lat storms returned to take advantage of the change of seasons. But when the Atlantic decided to wake up, she threw a few days our way-peelers at the Wall, fun contests on the Cape, and shacks in New Jersey-the kind of waves that you store away in a special vault in your psyche. And then there was Noel.
This was The Season.
We as Easties do not have it easy. Yeah sure there are definitely some epic days. Overhead barrels, face shots with manageable temps...more often than not though, it is flat, cold, wet, and icy. The Northeast is a harsh place. Bad accents, and lately, even worse winters. It is just what we deal with; plane tickets are a factored winter and summer expense. We see the East as a training ground that makes us determined to tear apart the dream destinations we travel too, like we owe it to the East go show these places what we are made of.
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